TU student relaunches online magazine, provides opportunities for peers

By Phaedran Linger ’22 on February 23, 2023

After months of recruiting, gathering signatures and building a team of contributors, this spring, mass communication major Kendra Bryant ’25 will relaunch the Towson University chapter of Her Campus, an online magazine for female college students with 400 chapters across the globe.

Bryant says she is passionate about mass communication because there are endless opportunities and paths to take within the field, and she’s exploring as many as possible.

At TU, she has developed her mentorship and leadership skills through the Writing Center’s Fellowship in Writing, Tutoring and Pedagogy, an experiential learning program that embeds trained student consultants in writing-intensive courses to build a more positive and supportive academic writing experience for their peers. 

And as a high school student, she served as an editor and communications team member with literary arts organization CHARM: Voices of Baltimore Youth. Through this role, she seized opportunities, including interviewing Destiny’s Child member Michelle Williams in 2021 about her book as part of the Enoch Pratt Free Library’s Writers Live series.

Building on these experiences and her skills from classes, including MCOM 210: Digital Journalism and MCOM 258: Media Writing, Bryant looks forward to the challenge of overseeing a team of Her Campus contributors at TU.

She first came across Her Campus at Howard University, which she attended before transferring to TU in the spring of 2021. When getting involved as a new student, she noticed the organization had not been active since 2020 at TU. So in November 2022, Bryant decided to relaunch the chapter herself.

Her Campus covers careers, culture, politics, entertainment, beauty and health. Along with publishing the digital magazine, Bryant envisions Her Campus as an on-campus organization that will host events and activities for all students.

She says the publication will enable students to explore the communications field, building their portfolio in everything from social media and journalism to event planning and marketing. 

Because minorities are still underrepresented and underpaid in the arts, entertainment and media—African Americans make up 8.3% of these professionals according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor—she also hopes to build a sense of belonging and opportunities for more students, especially her Black peers.

“Her Campus provides students with a creative outlet to discuss topics of their choice and build a community to explore different views on common college experiences,” Bryant says. “I want to show mass communication, EMF and all art fields that there is a community for us and our passions matter.”